The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties
seen on TV @ TCM
5.7.12


I've never thought of the drinking of alcohol as a vice. I remember my father letting me have a sip of his beer as a kid, every once in awhile. I thought it made me feel grown-up. (I think he drank Michelob, but I don't recall for sure.) My beer of choice is Heineken (sorry, Frank Booth), but I usually only drink on special occasions. I'm not a prude, I'm just not that into beer, which also means I'm not a regular bar-goer. Hand me a beer, though, I won't turn it down (especially after spending twenty hours on a train).


Same goes for wine and other spirits. When I traveled to Barcelona for a summer, I was only 21 and still learning about the rest of the world, so it took me a bit by surprise when I saw how commonly people over there drink wine. Either my first or my second night there, I tried some of the local vino. I can't say with any authority whether it was good or not because I was unused to the taste of wine in general. Suffice it to say it wasn't to my liking. I stuck to Coke and bottled water for the remainder of the vacation. And of course, I've had champagne on New Year's Eve, but that tastes even weirder.

I'm certain I've never been falling down drunk - and no, it's not a matter of "if I have been, I wouldn't remember," either. It takes longer for someone as big and tall as I am to get drunk. I have a few friends who are recovering alcoholics. Once, I was at a comics convention and I was crashing with one of those friends. We had come from a party in the hotel and were walking across the parking lot to her car. I was finishing off a beer. As we got into her car, she said to me, "Please don't drink that in my place," and I was quickly reminded that she was, indeed, still clean and sober. I hurriedly drained the bottle dry and stuffed it into my backpack, out of sight.


In thinking about Prohibition, I can't help but be reminded of the so-called "war" on drugs. Without getting into a big political debate, let me just say that curtailing vice through legislation seems to create more problems than it solves. I think the most you can do is make it harder for people to engage in, as opposed to eliminating it altogether. Here in New York, laws have recently been passed banning smoking not only from bars, but also from parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas. I still see people lighting up, though - and cigarettes haven't gotten any cheaper either.

The Roaring Twenties plays kinda like a documentary in that the narrative is sprinkled with voice-over montages describing what Prohibition was like in the 1920s, how people profited from the liquor bootlegging business, and how the law combated it. I'm sure this movie was meant to be as much cautionary tale as entertainment; after all, Prohibition was still within recent memory. It's unsubtle, yet interesting to watch, and doesn't detract much from the main narrative.


Jimmy Cagney's in fine form, as always. I really felt for his character as he goes through his rise and fall. It was odd at first to see Humphrey Bogart in a supporting role, but there's no mistaking his presence - and he shares some great scenes with Cagney.

The ethics of sneaking food into theaters

...theaters clearly permit eating in the auditorium. They might, fairly, be able to stop you from eating if eating was not permitted at all (say, for sanitary and janitorial reasons; in fact, they encourage you to eat messy and smelly foods).

Unlike a restaurant, which can reasonably stop you from sitting and eating your independently purchased food, because otherwise you would be stealing the use of their facilities, the primary usage of a theater is noteating; there is no requirement that you eat. And most people don't; they just watch the movie. Thus, the theater is trying to curtail legal and reasonable behavior in an attempt to coerce you to do something that is an optional part of the deal.

One thing I didn't mention in my post on Avengers - because I was saving it for here - is that I snuck in a box of cookies when I saw it. I was surrounded by people with popcorn and soda, and one can hardly blame them; it's that kind of movie. Still, I had already bitten the bullet and chose to pay full price - a whopping thirteen dollars - to see the film, and I was not about to add another ten bucks on popcorn and soda myself. Unlike the film critic in the preceding article, Michael Wolff, I stuck my cookies in my knapsack. I saw no need to flaunt them.

Don't get me wrong. I understand why first-run theaters charge as much as they do on concessions. The percentage they get from the box office only goes so far, so they have to make it up somewhere. I get that. I do. I even sympathize, to a degree.

Still, I'm not a first-run theater owner. I'm a consumer, a customer, and I personally cannot justify paying both a full-price ticket and a seven-dollar popcorn. It's too much money for what should be a casual, somewhat frivolous, bit of entertainment. In recent years, I've opted to buy candy instead, but at three or four bucks a pop, that also tends to be overpriced. I got my box of cookies for a mere two dollars. (It was at an Entenmann's outlet store, where they sell their bakery products at dirt cheap prices. Two bucks is like half the normal price at a supermarket.)

At the same time, though, I don't think it's right for me to openly advocate sneaking food into theaters. I may have done it in the past, but the more I think about it, the more I don't wanna advocate it anymore. Theaters have it rough enough as it is these days, and as someone who favors seeing movies in theaters and tries to recommend that as much as I can (why do you think I always state where I see movies?), I don't want to make it worse for them. Ultimately, you should do whatever feels right for you.

And as for the Wolff incident, well, what can I say? Clearly everyone overreacted big time. Wolff didn't need to be such a dick. As a film critic, he's been to enough movie theaters to know that they tend to frown on people sneaking food and/or drink into theaters. He should also know that people still do it anyway, and often. He didn't need to act like he was above it. That said, was a single bottle of some health drink really worth calling the cops? No winners in this situation, says I.

Thoughts?